Smiles Are Contagious
by xiluvrock145
Summary: Delly Cartwright and Peeta Mellark grew up together in D12, as close as siblings. But after two Hunger Games, Delly, now in D13, is forced to recall on her memories of Peeta in order to aid him after his hijacking by the Capitol. MJ, pg. 186-191.
1. Part One

**A/N: This is a two-shot story from MJ, approximately pg. 186–191, from Delly Cartwright's POV. Most of this half might be a bit boring, as it takes place when Katniss is not even there yet. I apologize if Delly seems OOC, but I can only say that I characterized her a bit differently than Katniss seemed to view her as in the book, as if there's another more delicate and sorrowful side to her personality. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Smiles Are Contagious — Part One

It's been rough here. Ever since that first bomb was dropped on District 12 nearly two months ago, I've changed more than possible. Who could've imagined the outcome of it all?

My little brother Safario and I managed to escape the worst of the flames, with the help of strong Gale Hawthorne and his family, but losing our parents has made us weak and susceptible to cries. I still often catch Safario crying himself to sleep some nights, and even the crooning voice of Mrs. Capillion, a native of 13 and our adoptive mother, cannot comfort him.

I do not blame her for all of this. Katniss Everdeen. It was not her arrow that shot the force field in the arena and brought on this brutal war, I tell myself. It was not her idea to take out those berries and start a rebellion. And, lastly and most importantly, it was not her that destroyed our home.

Safario is napping in our compartment, 76E, while Mr. and Mrs. Capillion are out training for battle. I'm supposed to be watching my brother, and I have nothing else to do until my training starts in two hours.

The schedule on my arm states that lunch is in 30 minutes, but the rescue mission should be back any minute now. Plutarch Heavensbee and President Coin have planned a dangerous mission to rescue the living victors from the Capitol. I don't know the details, but apparently Katniss had a major breakdown a few days ago, bad enough to convince Coin to let this mission go. I feel sorry for Katniss, as I know being the Mockingjay must be difficult. I suppose that 13 owes her enough to bring Peeta and the others back.

I hear them arriving now. The hovercraft from 13 are landing on the surface and the surviving victors are probably being wheeled out right now. Our compartment does not have a view of the outside world, but I know enough to know that if the mission was a success, Peeta will be one of them. It's been a while since I've seen him; seen his father smile as he gives me free samples of bread. I honestly do miss him.

I fall back against my pillow next to my brother and close my eyes. The roaring of the hovercraft fades away as I fall into a deep slumber.

* * *

I do not know when I awake. It must be at least a day later, by the stiffness in my legs. My medicine must've put me into a period of unconsciousness. Mrs. Capillion is shaking me vigorously. My eyes are heavy with sleep. What's going on?

"Delly." Mrs. C looks relieved that I am now awake. "Delly, you are needed straight away in the hospital with Plutarch Heavensbee."

"What?" I blink groggily.

"I don't know anything else, sweetie. A messenger just dropped by and reported that you are needed immediately. Go on, before you are accused of dawdling!"

"But, my schedule, it says to —"

"Disregard your schedule, Delly; you are needed now. Go!"

I do what Mrs. C says without hesitating. Now that I am fully conscious, I understand. If this is truly an order from Mr. Heavensbee, I could be accused of treason if I do not obey. I do not even bother to put on my coat over my 13 uniform or brush back my hair, which a pulled back into a messy braid before I slept. No dawdling in the corridors will help either.

As I board the elevator, I press the button that will take me to the floor with the hospital entrance. The elevator moves laterally and vertically until I finally arrive. After quickly stepping off, I run frantically down the halls until I reach a secretary's desk.

"Name?" The woman asks curtly.

"Soldier Dellia Cartwright," I say with a gasp.

The secretary frowns. "And you are here because . . ."

"Plutarch Heavensbee called me up immediately," I say, knowing she won't believe me. I am correct.

"Just one moment please, Soldier Cartwright," she says, tapping on her keyboard and murmuring into her headset.

I stand impatiently in front of the secretary's desk as she checks with Plutarch about my arrival. I notice that her desk is covered with many scraps of papers and no photographs of loved ones that you would expect.

The secretary hangs up her call and motions me inside the hospital wing. "Room 43, please, Soldier Cartwright. Plutarch is waiting for you."

I locate the elevator and take it to the fourth floor of the hospital. After I locate Room 43, I stand for a while in front of the door, not knowing what to expect. I finally work up enough nerve to knock on the door with thick knuckles, hesitant to do much more.

"Enter," someone says from inside, and I do.

* * *

When I close the door firmly behind me, several sullen faces stare back. I recognize a few of them immediately. Plutarch Heavensbee, former Head Gamemaker, leader of the rebels in the Capitol. Haymitch Abernathy, oldest living victor from Twelve, mentor to Katniss and Peeta. There are also several men in ties and jackets who sit idly with open notebooks and pens, as if they are to record every little thing I do.

I try to smile, but my lips seem to be frozen.

"Soldier Dellia Cartwright, I presume," Plutarch says with no emotion whatsoever in his callous voice of authority.

"Yes, sir," I say quietly, not bothering to add that I am called Delly.

"You may call me Plutarch," he says with the beginnings of a grin.

"Hello," Haymitch says with a nod. The men in ties say nothing.

"You're probably wondering why you're here, _Delly._" Plutarch gestures to the room, which seems to be a work space for this team of men in ties.

"I am," I admit.

"Have a seat."

I sit down in a plastic chair next to Plutarch and awkwardly cross my legs. The calm demeanor of this room is beginning to scare me. I just want to get out.

"Delly," Haymitch begins, "do you know Peeta very well?"

The questions shocks me. Why are they asking me such a thing?

"I did," I say in my quiet tone. "We were extremely close as young children. Growing up near each other must have been a factor. We were in the same class and we even could pass as siblings."

Haymitch smiles and looks over at Plutarch. "I told you she might've known him."

I'm appalled. "How did you know that I knew Peeta?"

"I didn't," he explains. "We've been calling in people all morning that may have had a connection to Peeta in the past, before the Games even began for him."

"But why?" I question, still perplexed.

Plutarch looks confused as well. "Haven't you heard?"

"No, I've basically been asleep for the past twenty-four hours," I say. "What's going on?"

Haymitch sighs. "Oh, my. Well, where to start?"

"We got Peeta back," Plutarch says.

My face breaks into a smile. "But that's wonderful! Katniss will be so happy!"

The team of men shifts their feet and adjusts their ties synchronically. Plutarch stares at his notes, and Haymitch shakes his head. There is something here that I do not know. I say nothing, hoping they will explain.

"Delly, Peeta has changed from his time in the Capitol," Plutarch says. "His memories of nearly everything we can find have been either destroyed or tampered with. Now, I'm going to explain this more thoroughly, but please do not interrupt or ask questions until the end, okay?"

I nod wordlessly. _Changed?_

Plutarch turns to the notes in his lap. "You may or may not know this already, but after Peeta was captured from the arena by the Capitol, his plan to save Katniss had, he believed, failed. Two other tributes, Johanna and Enobaria, were captured as well, but their memories have not been tampered with like Peeta's have."

Haymitch steps in. "To put it simply, he has been subject to a type of fear conditioning called 'hijacking'. The method involves the use of tracker jacker venom, which can distort your memories of certain things and change how they are seen. We believe that Peeta now views Katniss as a threat and not an ally, or anything else that signifies who she really is."

Tracker jacker venom. The terrible substance that drove Katniss to sheer madness in her first Hunger Games. I swallow a lump of saliva in my throat.

"We believe that this was used, in a way, to effect Katniss as well, but she hasn't discovered that yet." Plutarch nods and closes his notes, signaling that I can now freely speak.

I clear my throat. "So they've taken Peeta's memories of her and changed them so that he might be afraid of her?"

"Worse," Haymitch says gravely. "Yesterday, we scheduled a reunion of the happy victors, but before anything could be done, Peeta had gotten her in a chokehold and tried to strangle her."

"It was terrible," one of the men speaks up.

"So he now sees her as so threatening as to feel the need to kill her?" I briefly clarify.

Plutarch purses his lips. "Yes. I'm sorry, Delly."

"Is it reversible?" I choke out.

"Beetee, the mechanical victor from 3, says it's possible. But I personally believe he will never be the same," Haymitch says.

"Why am I here?"

Plutarch looks up. "Delly, as someone who knew Peeta in his childhood, you may be able to trigger some good memories of his life before the Games. If you are able to convince him of something good, it may be easier to cure him."

"You want me to talk to him," I say flatly.

"Yes, it —"

"You want me to be in the same room as an unstable fool who cannot tell the difference between reality and fantasy?"

"It will be perfectly safe," Plutarch reassures me. "We will have him strapped down to a table and in case he flies off the handle again, we will be able to inject morphing into his veins to calm him down. His recovery team will be taking notes on his reactions to your words and hopefully it will help uncover exactly what damage has been done to his brain."

I don't know what to say.

"I haven't talked to Peeta in almost two years," I retort.

"If his long term memories have not been tampered with, it won't matter," Plutarch replies. "Just make sure to stay away from topics such as the Capitol, District 12, Katniss, and the Games. Just remind him of things you two used to do back when you were children."

"What do you say, Soldier?" Haymitch asks me, his somber face tugging at a smirk.

"We need you," Plutarch adds.

I can't believe that the commander of the rebellion, second only to President Coin, is acknowledging my participation in something that will help our success. How else am I supposed to answer?

"All right," I decisively say. "For Katniss. And for the rebellion."

Plutarch smiles. "All right then."

* * *

**A/N: ****I requested that Delly be added to the character list. Hope they approve soon, because for now, it's listed as being Peeta M. and Katniss E.**

**Part Two will be up soon! Stay tuned, s'il vous plaît. :)**


	2. Part Two

Smiles Are Contagious - Part Two

For the next ten minutes, Plutarch, Haymitch and I discuss other things. They ask me how I am liking 13. I tell them the truth, that although I miss home, the people have been very nice and helpful to us. They tell me a bit more of the incident with Peeta and Katniss, and how Katniss is getting out of recovery.

After ten minutes, Haymitch leaves to go locate Katniss and bring her back here. "We need to fill her in on what you're going to do," he says.

Plutarch and I continue chatting until he comes back with her.

I want to faint when my old classmate enters the room. Although she is wearing a high collar up to her ears, the dark bruises around her neck until still visible and deep. Her tired gray eyes have an aura of frightening density in them, and her hair is in clumps of black. As she scans the room, looking for signs of activity, I notice that she looks even skinnier than last time I saw her, which was during the reaping of the Quell. They have not fully described the effects of the attack on her well enough to me. She looks more exhausted than Plutarch, Haymitch, and the entire recovery team combined.

It takes all the muscles in my body to force a smile at her and look like she's just what I expected her to be like. "Katniss!"

"Hey, Delly," she says without expression. "How are you doing?"

_She recognizes me,_ I think with relief.

I feel genuine tears start to pool up in my eyes. "Oh, it's been a lot of changes all at once," I say honestly. "But everyone's really nice here in Thirteen, don't you think?"

Katniss doesn't fully agree with me. "They've made an effort to make us feel welcome."

They were right about one thing. _Katniss has changed._

"Are you the one they've picked to see Peeta?" she continues.

"I guess so," I say with a shrug. "Poor Peeta. Poor _you_. I'll never understand the Capitol."

Katniss sounds very wise when she speaks. "Better not to, maybe."

I don't know what to say to that. Luckily, Plutarch jumps in here to save me when responding. "Delly's known Peeta for a long time."

"Oh, yes!" I agree happily, for Katniss's sake. "We played together from when we were little. I used to tell people he was my brother."

"What do you think?" Haymitch glances at Katniss for approval. "Anything that might trigger memories of you?"

Of course not. Because we wouldn't want _that_ happening.

Katniss scrunches her eyebrows together. "We were all in same class. But we never overlapped much."

I feel like I have to contribute more to the conversation, even if it's a lie. "Katniss was always so amazing, I never dreamed she would notice me. The way she could hunt and go in the Hob and everything. Everyone admired her so."

Everyone turns to stare at me, including Katniss, who must know it must be made up. Her piercing eyes seem to momentarily soften and her twitching mouth lets me know that she knows I'm trying to help.

"Delly always thinks the best of everyone," she explains. "I don't think Peeta could have bad memories associated with her." Then she blinks and seems to remember something important, and she restates her words. "Wait. In the Capitol. When I lied about recognizing the Avox girl. Peeta covered for me and said she looked like Delly."

I have no idea what she's talking about, but I'm guessing it has something to do with her first Games and Peeta, so I say nothing.

"I remember," Haymitch says, nodding. "But I don't know. It wasn't true. Delly wasn't actually there. I don't think it can compete with years of childhood memories."

I smile to myself. I'm glad they are so confident in my abilities.

Plutarch grins. "Especially with such a pleasant companion as Delly," he says, gesturing to me. I smile wider. "Let's give it a shot."

* * *

Plutarch tells me to go down to Room 67, where Peeta is being monitored. I am to go in, talk as much as I can about home without triggering memories of Katniss or anything else Plutarch calls 'dangerous territory'.

"It'll be perfectly safe," he tells me. "We'll all be in the room next door, monitoring you and Peeta. If anything starts to go wrong, the door will automatically fly open and you are to back out of the room slowly. But I don't think anything will go wrong, Soldier. We trust you."

When I reach Room 67, I carefully pry loose the doorknob and enter the room cautiously. I look over to the left where there is a wall of one-way glass that I know the crew is hiding behind. I nod at the glass to let them know I am starting, and slowly begin to walk forward to Peeta's bed.

Peeta Mellark has not changed in the two years that I haven't seen him, at least not much physically. His wide blue eyes observe me with curiosity and loose sanity, and his tousled hair still looks like he stepped out of a giant hair dryer. But now equipped with the knowledge of his so-called 'hijacking', I know that he couldn't be any futher from different than he was before.

I almost begin to cry at all the tubes and wires connected to his body, and how less than three years ago this same boy was sitting in my math class, helping me solve equations. I want to scream at what the wretched Capitol has done to us, but if I screamed, who knows what Peeta might do?

Fortunately, Peeta looks fine. He watches as I continue crossing the room, finally stopping a few feet away from his bed. My faces breaks into a natural smile at how normal he currently seems and how he appears to want to acknowledge my visit.

"Peeta?" I say tentatively. "It's Delly. From home."

"Delly?" I watch as Peeta's eyebrows lift and the curious expression begins to clear out. "Delly. It's you."

I still want to cry. But now, I want to cry out of relief. "Yes! How do you feel?"

Peeta fidgets with his hands. "Awful," he sighs. "Where are we? What's happened?"

Oh, no. This is where it's going to start getting a bit uneasy. _Relax, Delly,_ I tell myself. _State the facts._

"Well . . we're in District Thirteen. We live here now."

Peeta frowns. "That's what those people have been saying. But it makes no sense. Why aren't we home?"

There's no real way to get around this. I bite my lip and continue on. _Conjure up the past,_ I tell myself.

"There was . . . an accident. I miss home badly too," I say. "I was only just thinking about those chalk drawings we used to do on the paving stones. Yours were so wonderful. Remember when you made each one a different animal?"

Peeta smiles fondly at the slight memory. "Yeah. Pigs and cats and things." Then he goes back to frowning. "You said . . . about an accident?"

_No, no, no, stop it Peeta! I'm trying to avoid that question!_

"It was bad," I finally tell him, tears beginning to form all over again. "No one . . . could stay."

The crew behind the one-way glass is probably tensing up so dreadfully right now. One tiny slip of my tongue and everything could go downhill. I try to continue without pause.

"But I know you're going to like it here, Peeta. The people have been really nice to us. There's always food and clean clothes, and school's much more interesting." I add a smile for believability.

Peeta, however, is not faltered. "Why hasn't my family come to see me?"

The tears are threatening to leak. Memories of my parents and Peeta's parents are surfacing. "They can't," I whisper. "A lot of people didn't get out of Twelve. So we'll need to make a new life here. I'm sure they could use a good baker. Do you remember when your father used to let us make dough girls and boys?"

Sadly, my subtle subject change does not work the way I thought it would. Remembering about the bakery for Peeta would equal remembering about fire. _The fire._

"There was a fire," he says abruptly; calmly, even.

I cannot hold myself back anymore. "Yes," I say in a murmur.

"Twelve burned down, didn't it? Because of her!" Peeta's voice is slowly raising to a shout. "Because of Katniss!"

My eyes widen. _Because of Katniss? _How could he even think such a thing? How did we get from chalk drawings to fire to Katniss? Oh, right. He's been 'hijacked' by the Capitol.

"Oh, no, Peeta. It wasn't her fault," I attempt to convince him quickly.

Peeta hisses his next words violently at me. "Did she tell you that?"

I feel the door behind me open up and I begin to slowly back towards it as Plutarch ordered me to.

"She didn't have to. I was —" I try to say, but he cuts me off.

"Because she's lying!" he screams. "She's a liar! You can't believe anything she says! She's some kind of mutt that the Capitol created to use against the rest of us!"

A mutt. This is where Peeta Mellark has come to. There is where he will be stuck with for the remainder of his life. His mind has been played with enough to convince him that brave, daring, and selfless Katniss Everdeen is now a mutation of the Capitol. I'm sure that being strangled was less agonizing for her to cope with.

I still cannot give up. I still am not able to believe that this is where it will all end. "No, Peeta. She's not a —"

"Don't trust her, Delly," Peeta cries frenetically. His hands start to fiddle with the restraints on his arms. "I did, and she tried to kill me. She killed my friends. My family. Don't even go near her! She's a mutt!"

I have now reached the doorway. The team obviously doesn't want me to remain in the room any longer, as a hand reaches though the door and pulls me from the room. But nothing is able to block out Peeta's yells of Katniss's inflictions.

"A mutt! She's a stinking mutt!" he continues screaming. I listen as his shrill and piercing voice echoes into the hall.

I close my eyes to try and block out the mental image of Peeta and I sitting on the floor of the bakery, making dough people and coloring pictures of happy families. Families that are now either destroyed or dead. It's unbearable.

As I walk back to my compartment, I do not even stop to check up with the recovery team, Plutarch, or Haymitch. They are most likely dealing with Katniss, anyway. It's too late for my family, and Peeta's as well. But maybe they can save Katniss's by dealing with her.

After all, _she_ is the Mockingjay. Not me. Whatever I do can be pardoned conclusively. But as the Mockingjay, she must take responsibility for the Capitol's actions upon us all. I have to admire her in a way. Whatever Peeta will do, she can deal with. Her strong spirit may help save us all.

* * *

**A/N: Okay, that was supposed to be a sad ending, but I can't write sad endings, so I added the last few sentences so that the story will seem a bit happier. Hope you liked it, and I'd absolutely adore it if you left a little review. *hint hint***


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